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Monday, December 08, 2014

This weekend, I wrote a game (in Haskell of course!) for Ludum Dare, an event in which you have 48h or 72h to create a game matching an imposed theme. It was really challenging!

Once the event was over, it was time to package my game in a form which others could play. Since the packaging procedure wasn't obvious, I'm documenting it here for future reference. The procedure isn't specific to Haskell, but I'll mention that linking Haskell programs statically, as advised around the web, didn't work for me on any platform.

Windows

While your program is running, use Process Explorer to list the .dll files your program is currently using (There is also Dependency Walker, but on my program it missed glut32.dll). Copy those DLLs to the same folder as your executable, zip the folder, and ship it.

OS X

Use otool -L to list the .dylib files on which your executable depends, and copy them to the same folder as your executable (or a libs subfolder). Use install_name_tool to change all the dylib paths embedded in your executable to @executable_path/foo.dylib (or @executable_path/libs/foo.dylib). Zip the folder, and ship it.

Linux

Use ldd to list the .so files on which your executable depends, and copy all of them exceptlibc.so.X to the same folder as your executable (or a libs subfolder). Add ld-options: -Wl,-rpath -Wl,$ORIGIN (or ld-options: -Wl,-rpath -Wl,$ORIGIN/libs) to your cabal file, pass those flags directly to gcc, or use chrpath to change the existing RPATH if there is one. Zip the folder, and ship it.